Physician Action Urged to Help Prevent Impending Medicare Cuts
All physicians are urged to contact Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, as well as their respective US representatives (Contact your members of Congress today) to urge that they enact H.R. 6683, the “Preserving Seniors’ Access to Physicians Act.” If enacted, it will completely eliminate the scheduled 3.37% Medicare physician payment cut starting in 2024.
This week, MSSNY joined 7 other Northeastern State medical societies (DE, CT, MA, MD, NJ, OH and PA) in a press release Northeastern Medical Societies Applaud Introduction of Legislation (mssny.org) praising the sponsors of this legislation and calling for its immediate enactment. The societies noted that “Together, our societies represent hundreds of thousands of physicians providing care to tens of millions of patients each year, including to the over 14 million Medicare-eligible patients living in our respective states. Each of our states already face significant shortages of physicians to fully meet our patients’ care needs. By failing to prevent this cut, it would make these access to care problems far worse.’
The looming 3.37% reduction comes after three years of consecutive cuts to Medicare services. If Congress does not act now, Medicare payments will have been cut by almost 10% in four years, which is simply unsustainable for our nation’s physicians. In fact, due to these past cuts and the potential for additional Medicare cuts, physician practices and integrated systems of care have and will continue to eliminate services. This includes implementing hiring freezes, delaying system improvements and the transition to new value-based care systems.
In addition, this week MSSNY joined with several specialty societies and patient advocacy groups in a letter to New York’s Congressional delegation urging immediate action to prevent these cuts.
To help prevent this cut, Contact your members of Congress today!
